“Halfway House: GOP falling short in midterms,” reads the headline on this Politico story on 2014 House races. Writer Alex Isenstadt notes that in House races Democratic committees are outraising and outspending Republican committees, which is interesting, considering that Republicans currently hold the House majority and, as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head Tony Coehlo used to remind donors in the 1980s, “every committee and every subcommittee chairmanship.” Isenstadt does not probe too deeply here at why the Democrats have this advantage, though in fairness Democratic fundraisers are not likely to advertise their secrets.
Republicans gained 63 seats in 2010, the biggest change of party in House seats since 1946 and 1948. GOP redistricters wisely chose to protect incumbents rather than try to oust Democrats.Isenstadt is also careful to note that Republicans gained 63 seats in the 2010 election — the biggest change of party in House seats since 1946 and 1948 — and Republican redistricters sensibly sought to protect possibly shaky Republican incumbents rather than seek to endanger Democrats. In other words, Republicans have already made the gains that the non-presidential party sometimes (1938, 1958, 1966, 1974, 2006) but by no means always (1986, 1998) makes in elections in the sixth year of a presidency.
The arithmetic goes like this. We’re in an era of straight-ticket voting. In 2012, only 26 House districts voted for the presidential candidate of one party and a House candidate of the other. That’s the lowest number since 1920. Mitt Romney, despite losing the presidency, carried more House districts (226) than President Obama (209). There are only 17 House Democrats elected in Romney districts and 9 House Republicans elected in Obama districts. Republicans won 234 House seats in 2012, and 225 of them — a majority of the House — were in Romney districts. With Obama’s job rating today (42 percent positive) well below November 2012 (50 percent positive), Republicans are in good shape to hold onto just about all those seats, with exceptions carefully and, I believe, accurately pointed out by Isenstadt.
It also means that Republicans have relatively few plausible targets. Republicans seem to be competitive in Senate races in no states where Obama won more than 54 percent of the vote. That was his percentage in Michigan, where most recent polls show Republican Terri Lynn Land trailing Democrat Gary Peters by small margins. In House races there are, by my count, only 25 Democrats representing districts where Obama won 53 percent or less. There are a few Democratic seats which may be winnable by Republicans where Obama got 54 percent or more, for particular reasons (open seats where incumbents aren’t running, scandal issues affecting incumbents, Illinois districts where Obama’s numbers 2012 numbers may overstate Democrats’ current strength).
If you look at the ratings in the Cook Political Report you will find only 4 seats rated as leaning or likely to switch parties: California 31 (where under California’s new system two Republicans led in the 2012 primary and there was no Democratic candidate, plus the Republican incumbent is retiring in a 57 percent Obama district), New York 11 (where the Republican incumbent has scandal problems in a 52 percent Obama district) and North Carolina 7 and Utah 4 (where barely re-elected Democratic incumbents are retiring in districts where Obama got 40 and 30 percent of the vote). Cook lists only three districts as “Republican tossups,” Colorado 6 (a 52 percent Obama district with a high Hispanic percentage), Florida 2 (where the Republican is opposed by the daughter of former Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham) and Iowa 3 (a 51 percent Iowa district where the incumbent is retiring). He lists 13 seats as “Democratic tossups,” indicating more peril for Democrats than Republicans. Most are in states Obama carried easily and in which there was no major Obama organization effort (California 7, California 26, California 52, Illinois 10, Illinois 12, Massachusetts 6, Minnesota 8, New York 21). Others are Arizona 1 and 2 (48 percent Obama districts carried by Romney), Florida 26 (a heavily Cuban-American district), New Hampshire 1 (a perennial marginal) and West Virginia 3 (coal country that voted 33 percent Obama and which has been represented by incumbent Nick Joe Rahall since 1976).
I think a good Republican year in House elections would be a gain of more than 8 seats, a number that looks within reach but by no means inevitable. Between the 1958 and 1992 elections, Democrats never won fewer than 243 seats. Those low points came in the Nixon and Reagan landslide re-election years of 1972 and 1984. Between the 1948 and 2012 elections, Republicans never won more than the 242 seats they won in 2010. That’s looking like a historic barrier and crossing it would be an historic event. It might not seem like a big gain from the 234 seats Republicans won in 2012. But it’s a huge gain — one I think just about no one expected six years ago — from the 178 seats they won in 2008.
